This gentle-to-heavy approach is used again to good effect on the lengthy bonus track "Beirut", which, reaching its angry and cathartic conclusion, becomes almost Led Zeppelin-like in its intensity. "Douce" has a languid French voice-over before the trumpet riff develops into something quite spectacularly heavy. Maalouf is clearly no stranger to the work of the Markovic's (see below), although his trumpet style is very different from that of the Serbian horn-players: more Oriental with quarter tones, more fluid, less clipped and precise. "Never Serious" is another strongly Balkan-influenced piece. Elsewhere, there are moody tangos, and strident Balkan brass that morphs into exhilarating Latin salsa ("Maeva in Wonderland"). On the introduction to "Your Soul", the elegiac piano sounds quasi-classical, somewhere between Bach and Bill Evans, while "Everything or Nothing", the next track, begins with loud Goran Bregovic-style vocal chorus and thumping percussion before concluding with a lengthy melancholic trumpet and piano passage. Unhurried and hard to categorize, Diagnostic seems like chamber music one moment a film noir soundtrack the next. Ibrahim Maalouf-Lebanon-born, Paris-raised-is careful to identify himself as a composer rather than just a trumpet player but he is clearly both, his smoldering trumpet-think early to mid period Miles-shaping much of the music here. We say: Trumpet-based fusion from the mountains of Lebanon. The Mountain Music Project is themed as a 'musical odyssey' and for those interested there is also a film available that documents the Himalayan journey of Tara Linhardt and Danny Knicely, two of the principal musicians behind this recording. The Irish influence is already there in Appalachian music, of course, but maybe it takes outsiders-Nepali musicians for example-to bring it to the surface? Speaking of the Emerald Isle, the final track, "Paina Khabara (No Message from You)", another traditional Nepali song, actually sounds quite strikingly Irish despite its Himalayan origin. Stranger things have happened: the Indian sitar was successfully adopted for pop music by the Beatles' George Harrison, and Greek bouzoukis have been strumming along to Irish folk music for decades now. One thing: will the sarangi ever become a bone-fide Appalachian instrument? It is, after all, just a lump of wood with strings attached like any home-made fiddle. Solo pieces like "Das Avatar (Ten Faces of God)" played on sarangi, and "Going Across the Sea", with just fiddle and vocals, complement the ensemble pieces beautifully and help the flow of the musical narrative. The Mountain Music Project does well to show these similarities in style, and this nicely executed selection of tunes demonstrates warm, relaxed playing from all concerned.
Maybe it is simply that mountain musicians the world over bow down to the same muse? OK, it is easy to understand how some West African music resembles US delta blues and vice-versa but to my knowledge there has never been much musical cross-fertilization between the Himalaya Mountains and Appalachia-or the latter music's roots in Celtic lands. As the sleeve notes observe, "Going Across The Sea", a traditional Appalachian fiddle tune, bears quite an uncanny resemblance to "Deri Phul Paareko", the preceding track. What comes as a surprise is the similarity between some of the tunes regardless of the tradition they stem from. Traditional Nepali they may be, but they still have a pretty strong Appalachian ring to them. This multicultural aspect becomes far more obvious on the next two tracks, "Sita Rani Bonai Ma (Queen Sita in the Forest)" and "Deri Phul Paareko (So Many Eggs)", which are both down-home Himalayan mountain tunes sung by Nepali singers. What makes this a little more unusual is that two of the neighbors just happen to be Nepali musicians who play sarangi (a Himalayan fiddle) and madal, a wooden hand drum. "Cluck Old Hen", which begins proceedings, could be something that was recorded on a Virginia porch after the neighbors had dropped round with their fiddles and mandolins. When you slot this into your CD player the music that springs from the speakers sounds at first to be straightforward old timey Appalachian. We say: Flaming fiddles and blazing sarangis-Old Time music Appalachia meets the Himalayas. June 2012 - By Laurence Mitchell In this issue: Mountain music ties between Appalachia and Himalaya, trumpet fusion from Lebanon, and the latest from Serbian brass band star Boban Markovic.
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